Pathway 2 — Setting up

AI and accessibility

How AI tools can genuinely support students with dyslexia, visual impairment, autism, EAL needs, and other learning differences — and how to use them responsibly.

This is where Brickfield's expertise and classroom AI intersect. We have been working in accessibility in digital learning for over a decade. This page applies that knowledge to something practical — ways AI can genuinely reduce barriers for students who need additional support.

What AI can actually do here — and what it cannot

Let's be clear about what we are talking about. AI tools are not assistive technology. They do not replace screen readers, text-to-speech tools, or specialist support staff. That is important to say up front, because conflating them leads to bad decisions.

What AI can do is help you create more accessible, differentiated resources faster than you could produce them from scratch. And that matters, because the bottleneck in inclusive teaching is usually not knowledge — it is time. Most teachers know what good differentiation looks like. They do not always have the hours to produce three versions of every task.

And this is key: the professional judgement about what a student needs still comes from you. AI does the drafting. You do the knowing.

Supporting students with dyslexia

The approaches below help you create materials that work better for students with dyslexia. Remember the data protection rule throughout — describe the student's needs generically, never by name or with identifying detail.

Simplify the reading level. Paste in a complex text and ask the AI to rewrite it at a lower reading age while keeping the key ideas. "Rewrite this at a reading age of 10–11. Keep all the key concepts but use shorter sentences and simpler vocabulary."
Create a subject vocabulary list. Ask AI to pull out the specialist vocabulary from a topic and define each term in one plain-language sentence. A glossary a student helped build is more useful than one handed to them.
Generate sentence starters. For any writing task, ask for six sentence starters or writing frames that scaffold the structure without doing the thinking for the student.
Chunk the instructions. Ask AI to rewrite multi-step instructions as a numbered list — one step per line, no more than ten words per step.

Rewrite the following instructions for a student who finds reading difficult. Use short sentences, one idea per line, and number each step clearly. Avoid passive voice and complex clauses. Keep all the key information. [paste your instructions here]

Supporting students with EAL needs

AI is genuinely useful for EAL support — it can translate, explain, and scaffold at a level of consistency that is hard to sustain manually across a class. Here is what works well.

Parallel text. Ask for a bilingual version of a task brief — English on the left, the student's home language on the right. This supports access without removing the English learning requirement.
Vocabulary in context, not isolation. Ask for a vocabulary list where each term is used in a subject-specific example sentence, not just defined. Context helps EAL students retain words far more effectively than definitions alone.
Scaffolded response frames. Produce writing or discussion frames that provide the academic English structure while leaving the content thinking to the student.
Simplified exam questions. Rephrase complex question wording into plainer English to check whether the student understands the concept when the language barrier is reduced.

Data protection reminder: if you are producing bilingual materials, never include a student's name or identifying information. Produce generic resources that any student with that language background could use.

Supporting autistic students

Many autistic students find clear, structured, explicit communication easier to work with. That is exactly what AI produces well, if you ask it the right way.

Explicit social scripts. For group work or discussion tasks, ask AI to write the actual words students might say at each stage — how to join in, disagree respectfully, or ask for help. Not a description of what to do — the actual sentences.
Minute-by-minute lesson schedules. Ask for a lesson plan as a text schedule — what happens, for how long, and what comes next — that a student can follow independently and refer back to during the lesson.
Concrete before abstract, always. For any explanation, ask AI to lead with a concrete real-world example before introducing the abstract concept or technical term.
Remove ambiguity. Ask AI to review any student-facing text and flag idioms, figures of speech, or ambiguous language — then suggest more literal replacements.

Three versions of the same task — in one prompt

This is probably the highest-value use of AI for inclusive teaching. One prompt. Three differentiated versions. Here is the structure that works across subjects.

You are helping a secondary school teacher create inclusive resources. I have a main classroom task for a [SUBJECT] class on [TOPIC]. Please produce three versions: Version 1 — Foundation: Heavily scaffolded. Sentence starters, a partially completed example, and simplified vocabulary. For students working significantly below the expected level. Version 2 — Core: The standard task as written. Version 3 — Extension: Requires higher-order thinking. Adds a challenge element that demands analysis, evaluation, or creative application — not just more of the same. Main task: [paste your task here] No student names. Generic language throughout.

So what does that mean for your planning time? A task that might take 40 minutes to differentiate from scratch takes about ten. The three versions are produced together, consistently, in the same format. You review them, adjust where needed, and use them.

The limits — what AI cannot replace

It is important to be honest about this. AI-generated accessible resources are a starting point, not a substitution for specialist knowledge or professional assessment.

→AI does not know the individual student. You do. Every resource needs to be reviewed against what you actually know about that student's needs.
→AI-generated resources are not a replacement for specialist assessment or an individual education plan.
→Never include a student's diagnosis, SEN details, or support plan in an AI prompt. Describe support needs generically.
→For formal accessibility requirements — screen readers, captioning, WCAG compliance — consult Brickfield's specialist resources at brickfield.ie (opens in new tab).